Advice for complete beginner (UK) - Dryslopes / Metroski

You're only going to get advice to snowboard here but seriously, while the first 2 days on a board will be much harder than the first 2 on skis, you will enjoy boarding more than skiing immediately after that. Skiing has a long slow learning curve - you just keep on learning. Whereas as boarding has a short steep learning curve - it's starts out impossible, and then seems easy.

I hadn't skiied, surfed, skateboarded or anything when I started. (Tho I had done lots of motorcycling & MTBing). And I was over 30. The bench mark I use is that at the end of your first week you should be comfortable doing blue runs.

I have no experience of these, but I would recommend some lessons in the UK. Every hour spent falling over here is an hour you won't have to spend in the resort. Learning on a dry-slope is hard (and painful), but it does teach you good technique.

I'd definitely take up snowboarding. I can be fairly impartial here, because I also ski. But you'll get far more pleasure and progress far more quickly on a snowboard than on skis. On the board, by the end of the week you'll be abloe to keep up with your experienced mates fairly easily. On skis, you'd still be clumsily snowploughing down the easy runs.

Skiing is, in any event, not a 'real' downhill sport. Remember, skiing was invented primarily as a means of going cross country for hunting. When skilifts were invented, people transposed this sport into a downhill sport. It really is a clumsy means of getting down a hill! If you were to invent a means of sliding down a snowy hill from first principles, you would definitely reinvent snowboarding as it is far more natural.

It's well like a big revolving belt type thing that you place your board/skies and rotates against your sliding direction , so you get to slide without moving. I saw them at the London Ski/Board show. They looked very wierd. Give me a large slope and snow!